Part 19

The “trout-camp” became famous in the valley, and paragraphs noticing the catch appeared in the Stockton Independent, and even in the Sacramento Bee. Jack had accomplished his purpose, and had not come to the Yosemite in vain.

Then the prairie schooner sailed away through the mountains, Madge and his Reverence driving by turns, while the Judge held his ponderous foot on the brake. Yang was mounted on a mustang, while the doctor and Jack trudged through the dust. Frequent halts were made, the Judgess taking her noon-day siesta; the “three fishers,” as she called Madge, his Reverence and Jack, striking out for some neighboring stream. Near the Tuolumne big trees his Reverence took the largest trout of the trip—a four-pounder. On the Tuolumne Biver the three met with fair success; but on the upper waters of the Stanislaus the sport was better. They tarried by the stream winding through that dead little mining town, Big Oak Flat. The banks of the little river were honey-combed by the old placer mining. The population of the Flat wondered to see Madge cast a fly. Even the Chinamen who were still washing for gold, would throw aside their cradles and pans to gaze.

An ancient beau of the town stranded there fifteen years ago (such a man as Bret Harte would have gloried in), became so enamored with the fair angler that he would have followed in her wake; but the fickle object of his admiration eluded her admirer, and the miner sadly headed his mustang toward his mountain home, promising to call “next time he went to ’Frisco.” The schooner dropped anchor in Oakland. The Judge asked all to dine with him that day week—“a sort of a re-union, as it were, you know.” His Reverence hastened to don something more in keeping with his cloth than a blue shirt; Madge threw a kiss to Jack as the Doctor handed her into a carriage; and Jack was left to cross the ferry alone. Yang, however, had not abandoned him. He produced a piece of red paper and asked Jack to write his address upon it.

“I hab one fliend who come get your washee Monday.”

Jack, inured to submission, could not refuse, and Yang’s “fliend” still does his “washee.”

Since the Yosemite excursion Jack has trailed salmon flies on the noble Columbia River, and whipped the California trout streams from the cactus-covered plains of the Mexican border to the glaciers of Mount Shasta, but he has never had such keen enjoyment with the fly as on that afternoon at Mirror Lake.

When he arranges his tackle for a little holiday sport on the Russian River, or the streams among the red woods of Santa Cruz, he sees again the reflected fir-trees and granite dome trembling in the water as the trout leap to his fly; he again hears Yang’s ejaculations and commands. “Fifty-sleven, Jack. Hi! that big fish; fifty-eight. You heap sabee. Hold him tight.’Rusalem, him sabee how swim! Pull like hella, fifty-nine!”

“Trout take some flies because they resemble the real fly on which they feed. They take other flies for no such reason.”—W. C. Prime.

“The oft-repeated quotation, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ has been misconstrued for many a long day, and if I had known early in life its real significance it would hardly have made so doleful an impression. There is no doubt to-day in my mind that this ‘rod’ meant a fishing-rod, and the timely cherishing of it in youth tends to develop the portion of one’s nature to which the former use was entirely innocent.”—Thomas Sedgwick Steele.

“My favorite fly of all is a snipe feather and mouse body.”—“Frank Forester.”

31. Cinnamon.

32. Deerfly.

33. Red Fox.

34. Camlet Dun.

35. Governor.

36. Green Drake.

37. Alder.

38. Cheney.

39. Soldier.

40. Hod.

41. Kingdom.

42. Oak Fly.

43. Gray Coflin.

44. Fire Fly.

45. Beaverkill.

46. Yellow May.

47. Black Jun.

48. Quaker.